The quest for infrastructure development from a “market creation” perspective:China’s “Belt and Road”, Japan’s …

The quest for infrastructure development from a “market creation” perspective:China’s “Belt and Road”, Japan’s “Quality Infrastructure” and the EU’s “Connecting Europe and Asia”. In: International Economics and Economic Policy, Issue 3/2020.

In the new paper, initiatives like China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Japan’s Partnership for Quality Infrastructure and the EU’s “Connecting Europe and Asia: Building blocks for an EU Strategy” are interpreted as the creation and development of a new market, whose characteristics like the complexity of its idiosyncratic product(s), its properties as an international public good and its oligopolistic supply structure create interesting and sometimes underrated insights. Interpretating the interaction of initiatives as an evolving oligopolistic structure, a chaotic competitive process has so far been avoided, and the contest actually has the potential to evolve towards superior solutions, raising the quality of such initiatives. The paper is scheduled for Issue 3 of the 2020 volume of International Economics and Economic Policy, but can already be accessed online: https://rdcu.be/b4o7W .

Political Games. In: Japan Through the Lens of the Tokyo Olympics, co-edited by Barbara Holthus, Isaac Gagné, Wolfram Manzenreiter, …

Political Games. In: Japan Through the Lens of the Tokyo Olympics, co-edited by Barbara Holthus, Isaac Gagné, Wolfram Manzenreiter, and Franz Waldenberger. Routledge 2020, pp. 13–17.This book situates the 2020 Tokyo Olympics within the social, economic, and political challenges for Japan. While the new Olympic competition is the race to reign in COVID-19 in time to hold Tokyo 2020 in the summer of 2021, in fact the build-up to Tokyo 2020 has been many years in the making, and this book documents how the preparations for the Olympics have already created tremendous changes in Japan. Tokyo 2020 is constructed to embrace diversity and inclusiveness in society, foster sustainability, boost Japan’s economy, improve social cohesion, create a feeling of unity and pride for the country, and increase citizens’ active participation in fostering the well-being of society. Through a critical, scholarly perspective, this book uses the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as a lens onto the city and country, offering insights and new perspectives on city planning, cultural politics, financial issues, language use, security concepts, education, volunteerism, and construction work. It explains the many stakeholders, institutions, average citizens, interest groups, and protest groups involved. This interplay between tensions and hopes is particularly elevated now, due to the current COVID-19 epidemic and the Games postponement.

The rather heterogeneous state of populism research on Japan and the potentially populist quality of the new political party …

The rather heterogeneous state of populism research on Japan and the potentially populist quality of the new political party Reiwa Shinsengumi are the two key points addressed by Axel Klein in his open access article published in the Asia-Pacific Journal (Link: https://apjjf.org/2020/10/Klein.html ).

Online Connective Representation in China – The Case of the Entrepreneurs. In: Asian Survey 2/2020, pp. 391–415.Part of the focal theme on political representation in China, organized by Thomas Heberer and Anna Shpakovskaya.https://online.ucpress.edu/as/article/60/2/391/107216/Online-Connective-Representation-in-China-The-Case?searchresult=1

Belts, Roads, and Regions: The Dynamics of Chinese and Japanese Infrastructure Connectivity Initiatives and Europe’s Responses. …

Belts, Roads, and Regions: The Dynamics of Chinese and Japanese Infrastructure Connectivity Initiatives and Europe’s Responses. Working Paper No. 1114, Asian Development Bank, April 2020.

Prof. Pascha argues that East Asia is setting the pace for the recent trend in regional and interregional integration, which is associated with multilateral infrastructure connectivity initiatives, like the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of the People’s Republic of China and Japan’s “Partnership for Quality Infrastructure” (PQI). While the EU was one of the early movers, with the establishment of the European Investment Bank in 1958 for instance, its mechanisms have so far not become pillars of a coherent and forceful political-economic strategy of the EU. The current European situation is rather one of reacting to a dynamic that other countries elsewhere have created. The paper offers conclusions and policy recommendations for developing a more forceful European strategy.

The paper can be found here: https://www.adb.org/publications/belts-roads-regions-dynamics-infrastructure-connectivity-initiatives/

Who are the fittest? The question of skills in national employment systems in an age of global labour mobility. In: Journal …

Who are the fittest? The question of skills in national employment systems in an age of global labour mobility. In: Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Special Issue: The Question of Skill in Cross-Border Labour Mobilities. Taylor & Francis Online, 2020.

Peer-review accepted: Guest Editorship for “Journal of Chinese Governance” (Taylor & Francis) and Focal Theme for “Asian Survey”After peer-review the Journal of Chinese Governance (published by Taylor & Francis) accepted a special issue on the topic Reappraisal of Political Representation across Political Orders: New Conceptual and Analytical Tools edited by Thomas Heberer and Anna Shpakovskaya (guest editors) to be published in Issue 4/2019. Among the contributors are renowned political scientists such Jane Mansbridge, Philippe Schmitter and Yves Sintomer.

After peer-review the journal ASIAN SURVEY accepted a focal theme on the topic Political Representation in China organized by Thomas Heberer and Anna Shpakovskaya, to be published in Vol. 60, No. 2 (March/April 2020).

(Eds.): China's Quest for Innovation. Institutions and Ecosystems. Routledge: London 2020.After more than three years …

(Eds.): China's Quest for Innovation. Institutions and Ecosystems. Routledge: London 2020.After more than three years work, this book finally is published (as E-book), and will be printed out in three weeks. More information:https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781351019743

Werner Pascha, Patrick Köllner, and Aurel Croissant: Japan Report. Sustainable Governance Indicators 2019 Country Reports, Bertelsmann-Stiftung 2019.Bertelsmann Stiftung has just released the eighth edition of its Sustainable Governance Indicators. From the outset, Prof. Werner Pascha of IN-EAST has been the principal first author of the Japan report, with Professors Patrick Köllner of GIGA Hamburg as second author and Aurel Croissant of Heidelberg University as regional coordinator. The SGI is a platform built on a cross-national survey of governance that identifies reform needs in 41 EU and OECD countries. All individual country reports as well as all quantitative data are accessible online athttps://www.sgi-network.org/2019/ ,the report on Japan from https://www.sgi-network.org/2019/Japan .In the meantime, work on the 2020 report has already commenced.

Special journal issue on “East Asia and the EU – Partners in Global Economic Governance”, edited by Sebastian Bersick …

Special journal issue on “East Asia and the EU – Partners in Global Economic Governance”, edited by Sebastian Bersick and Werner Pascha of AREA RuhrProfessors Sebastian Bersick (Bochum) and Werner Pascha (Duisburg) have recently edited a special issue of the East Asian Community Review, a journal of Palgrave Macmillan with Professor Key-young Son of Korea University, Seoul, as editor-in-chief, on East Asia and the EU – Partners in Global Economic Governance. The publication is an outcome of the research efforts of the Alliance for Research on East Asia Ruhr (AREA Ruhr), a cooperative scheme between the Faculty of East Asian Studies of Ruhr University of Bochum and of the Institute of East Asian Studies (IN-EAST) of Duisburg-Essen University.

The special issue, published in June 2019 https://link.springer.com/journal/42215/2/1), focuses on the topic of global governance and the role that European and East Asian actors and institutions play within it. All contributions explore how and why actors and institutions in Europe and East Asia are engaging in multilateral cooperation and the role of the domestic, regional and global levels in shaping their respective policies, behaviour and relations amongst both regions and on the global stage.

Papers were firstly presented during a workshop at Ruhr University Bochum on the eve of the Hamburg G20 summit in 2017. The event was supported by the European Union’s Jean Monnet programme and by its Jean Monnet Chair on The International Political Economy of EU-Asia Relations, located at the Faculty of East Asian Studies, Department of International Political Economy of East Asia, RUB. It was organized in cooperation with the School of International Relations and Public Affairs (SIRPA), Fudan University in Shanghai, and formed part of the AREA Ruhr collaboration.

The special issue encompasses four papers. Questioning the efficiency of intensive globalization, Werner Pascha (IN-EAST Duisburg) introduces the idea of a “regional policy space” in his conceptual paper on The Globalization Trilemma and Regional Policy Space: Opportunities and Challenges for the EU and East Asia. Bernadette Andreosso O’Callaghan (RU Bochum) deals with The G20 Growth Challenge in the Framework of EU East-Asia Economic Relations, approaching the topic from a macro-economic level of analysis. Nele Noesselt’s (IN-EAST Duisburg) article on Sino-EU Cooperation 2.0: Toward a Global “Green Strategy?” discusses China’s strategy vis-à-vis Europe as well as the recent changes in the EU’s China policy. Wang Xiaorui’s (Huaqiao University in Quanzhou) article China’s Approach to Environmental Governance and the Role of the EU in Market-Induced Reforms deals with how China’s domestic environmental governance policies and mechanisms are co-shaped by market-induced forces. All papers ultimately aim at contributing to the literature and policy discourse on the role of East Asia and the EU with regard to the future of politics and global governance, the reform of global economic governance and regional contributions in defence of multilateralism.

Advances in Solar Photovoltaics: Technology Review and Patent Trends. In: Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Vol. 115, (Nov) 2019.A recently published article by Mahmood Shubbak in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. The article reviews solar photovoltaic technologies, analyzes the geographical, organizational and technical trends of their patenting activities, and highlights the roles of East Asian countries such as China, Japan and Korea therein.Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that aims to share problems, solutions, novel ideas and technologies to support the transition into a low carbon future and achieve the global emissions targets established by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. With an impact factor of 10.556, the journal is ranked as the top scientific journal in the world within the category Green Sustainable Science & Technology according to the Journal Citation Reports of Clarivate Analytics (Web of Science) since 2017.Download the paper for free before November 13, 2019: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1ZnZw_V0xO-alV

Special issue titled “Reappraisal of Political Representation across Political Orders: New Conceptual and Analytical Tools”, …

Special issue titled “Reappraisal of Political Representation across Political Orders: New Conceptual and Analytical Tools”, edited by Thomas Heberer and Anna Shpakovskaya, positively reviewed and accepted by the Journal of Chinese Governance

IN-EAST Master student Andrew Devine publishes analysis of China's strategy in changing the norms of global Internet governance in POLITIKONThe revised paper is based on a paper presented in an Advanced East Asian Studies Seminar of Prof. Nele Noesselt.

Andrew Devine: Contesting the Digital World Order. China’s National Role Strategy in Changing the Norms of Global internet Governance. In: Politikon: The IAPSS Journal of Political Science, 42, 61–79.Internet: https://doi.org/10.22151/politikon.42.3 , 2019

AbstractThis article aims to understand China’s national role conceptions and strategy within the context of the World Internet Conference (WIC). The Chinese government uses this conference to promote its model of internet governance known as cyber sovereignty. The foreign policy behaviour of China (role performance) as well as role prescriptions from the US are also analysed. A novel approach based on frame analysis is taken to uncover China’s national role conceptions. The related frames in this article are then categorized into national roles. China performs four national roles as part of its strategy to reshape international internet governance norms: developer, global village member, global leader, and law-abiding citizen. This article concludes that the national roles in the WIC are aimed at developing and emerging countries in order to increase China’s power and win gradual support for the cyber sovereignty model.

Affiliated Risk and East Asia Research Training Group researcher Vitali Heidt has recently published a book and a book chapterHeidt, …

Affiliated Risk and East Asia Research Training Group researcher Vitali Heidt has recently published a book and a book chapterHeidt, Vitali (2017): Two Worlds of Aging: Institutional Shifts, Social Risks, and the Livelihood of the Japanese Elderly. Baden-Baden: Nomos.

This book illustrates why and to what extent societal aging has triggered a change in social security systems – which has simultaneously led to the emergence of new social risks in Japan. The regional context thus forms a crucial factor in welfare creation. As the foundation for a coherent and comprehensive representation of this complex matter, a mixed methods approach, consisting of ethnograpic fieldwork and analysis of both sociopolitical measures and aggregate data, was utilised in this book. The results indicate that the institutional framework has positive effects on the social economy and local communities. But innovative strategies of local problem-solving for social capital activation are fostered as well. This book is intended for scholars in the fields of welfare, social and regional research. But it also provides new input for both the social economy and social policy.

Japan has experienced a vast process of demographic aging and is the forerunner in terms of its elderly population; in 2017, more than 27.5 % of the population are older than 65 and future projections are dramatic. The rapid aging of the population poses challenges not only for the economy, but also for social security systems and the welfare of the elderly and is origin of social risks. Through the introduction of long-term care insurance (LCTI) in 2000, the Japanese government tried to tackle several issues: fiscal deficits through misusage of medical facilities for geriatric care, encumbrance of families, and social stigmatization of the care-seeking elderly. Overwhelmed by the success of the LCTI project, reforms became necessary to contain expenditure. More than that, regional aspects, such as infrastructure and aging, grew more vital. In this regard, a community care concept was introduced and successively implemented on a local basis. It marks, however, a process of change in the welfare package for elderly care, demanding more activity from local governments and the civil engagement of local communities to succeed.

– Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies – on “Belt and Road Initiative and China-Europe Relation”. Deadline …

– Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies – on “Belt and Road Initiative and China-Europe Relation”. Deadline for paper submissions: January 31, 2018The Special Issue is based on the "Third International Forum on the ‘New Silk Road’ and Sino-European Cooperation" at the University of Duisburg-Essen in November this year. Submissions are also open to papers outside the forum, so scholars from IN-EAST and other departments are welcome to submit their papers as well. Please follow the link to the Call for Papers:http://www.cec-duisburg.org/call-for-papers/

Asian Business & Management (ABM), published by Springer - Palgrave MacMillan, is an international peer reviewed journal …

Asian Business & Management (ABM), published by Springer - Palgrave MacMillan, is an international peer reviewed journal and the first business and management journal on Asia to be included...... in the Social Science Citation Index. Its RG Impact Factor is continuously rising reaching 1.37 in 2015/2016.

For more information, please visit: http://www.springer.com/business+%26+management/journal/41291

Kerstin Lukner and Alexandra Sakaki, two (former) members of the IN-EAST, organized the annual VSJF conference in 2014. Japan …

Kerstin Lukner and Alexandra Sakaki, two (former) members of the IN-EAST, organized the annual VSJF conference in 2014. Japan Forum (No. 1/2017) has published the conference results. A selection of papers on the conference’s topic “Trust and Mistrust in Contemporary Japan” has just been published in Japan Forum (Vol. 29, No. 1).http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rjfo20/29/1?nav=tocList

About the VSJF The German Association for Social Science Research on Japan (VSJF) was founded in 1988. Its general aim was and still is to strengthen the study of contemporary Japan in the German-speaking countries, namely Switzerland, Austria, and Germany. The Association is conceived as a forum for researchers and students from the fields of Japanese studies as well as from social sciences, including cultural studies.

Between Sophistication and Lack of Self-Confidence. Notes by Alessandra Cappelletti on Chinese Cultural Diplomacy Activities. …

Between Sophistication and Lack of Self-Confidence. Notes by Alessandra Cappelletti on Chinese Cultural Diplomacy Activities. Published in the EU-China Observer 4/2016. Download link https://www.coleurope.eu/page-ref/electronic-journal-centre-chair

About Alessandra Cappelletti Alessandra Cappelletti is Adjunct Professor of International Relations of East Asia at The American University of Rome. She is joining the IN-EAST and the KHK/GCR21 from October 2016 until March 2017.

For more information, please visit: https://www.uni-due.de/in-east/news.php?id=196

Congratulations to Hanno Jentzsch, doctoral fellow at the DFG training group 1613 Risk and East Asia, who passed his defense …

Congratulations to Hanno Jentzsch, doctoral fellow at the DFG training group 1613 Risk and East Asia, who passed his defense on March 10, 2016!The thesis on "The “Local” in Processes of Endogenous Institutional Change – Informal Village Institutions in Japan’s Changing Agricultural Support and Protection Regime" will be available at the library soon.

Since Japan joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1994, its notoriously extensive agricultural support and protection regime has been reformulated. Compared to the postwar era, agricultural support and protection has become more ambiguous and less comprehensive, oscillating between cautious liberalization and retaining old as well as introducing new interventionist elements.

While the common narrative emphasizes stability over change, this dissertation analyzes the trajectory of the Japanese agricultural support and protection regime as a process of gradual endogenous institutional change that is shaped beyond the realm of agricultural policy-making: at the interface between an increasingly ambiguous regulatory framework and local informal “village institutions”. This approach speaks to several gaps in the existing literature: first, there are no comprehensive accounts of the recent trajectory of the Japanese agricultural support and protection regime as a process of institutional change; second, concerning the vivid theoretical debate on endogenous institutional change in advanced political economies, this dissertation calls into attention the “local” as a level of analysis that often remains neglected. By focusing on the “local” as a juxtaposition of heterogeneous institutional spheres, I argue for a more dynamic perspective on seemingly “traditional” informal institutions as adaptive resources in processes of institutional change.

Diversity of firm sizes, complexity, and industry structure in the Chinese economy. In: Structural Change and Economic Dynamics. Volume 37, 06/2016, pp. 90–106. T. Heinrich & S. DaiAbstract: Among the phenomena in economics that are not yet well-understood is the fat-tailed (power-law) distribution of firm sizes in the world's economies. In the present paper we discuss different mechanisms suggested in the literature to explain this distribution of firm sizes. The paper uses the China Industrial Enterprises Database to study the distribution (firm size in terms of the number of employees, capital, and gross profit) for the provinces of China for the years 1998–2008. We estimate the power-law distribution and confirm its plausibility using the KS test and the log-likelihood ratio vs. lognormal and exponential distributions. The analysis on regional levels allows an assessment of regional effects on differences in the distribution; we discuss possible explanations for the observed patterns in the light of the recent regional economic development and the economic reforms in the PRC.

Download the paper for free before April 3, 2016: http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1SXrm,LimiH74N